Northern Arizona University
OP-7: Food and Beverage Purchasing

Through our, Arizona produces distributors (Stern’s and for a time FreshPoint) Sodexo has been able to increase the amount of Arizona and locally grown produce and products served on campus. Further efforts of creating direct vendor relationships with local Flagstaff businesses has benefited the local economy and connected students with the Flagstaff community. Overall Sodexo’s effort to increase food transparency and improve sourcing has forged greater relationships with farmers and locally businesses. Accomplishments include sourcing Flagstaff made bread through Village Baker, hot sauces, and tortillas through Rising Hy and The Tortilla Lady a business owned by a recent NAU Alumni. Our campaign, Real Food. Real People. provides a platform to communicate our sourcing practices and how we have increased the transparency of where our produce is being grown in Arizona. Securing produce from Crooked Sky Farms and Duncan Family Farm through our distributors is a major success to offer local and organic produce. Featured at the Open Air Markets, seasonal specialty menus and within the Sustainable Catering guide. Bella Pasta, Shamrock Dairy, and Mission tortilla are all Arizona made/grown products we source daily. Procurement of local food is challenging, and in a high elevation alpine desert climate, the ability to source locally is even greater. Past partnerships with the Bilby Research Greenhouse allows for on campus has grown produce to be used on site was a major step in creating the Turnip the Greens hydroponic wall for on campus lettuce production. NAU Campus Dining focuses on sourcing local, seasonal and sustainably grown products when available. NAU Campus Dining defines local as farmers within the same state or geographic region. In contracts with local produce distributors, we require that they source from local farms whenever possible for the quantities and seasonal freshness needed. November to March is the time frame in which Arizona grown produce is in season, and we use the highest percentage of locally grown products. We work to incorporate seasonally available produce into menus our events in resident dining, as well as those for special catering events and highlight limited time, offered options at the Green Scene Cafe that is a sustainability focused eatery. Other purchases that are sustainable are our beverage purchases of Aspretto fair-trade coffee and teas which include organic and fair trade Numi tea. We provide a variety of organic, fair-trade certified and sustainably raised/produced food items in two convenience stores on campus. Campus Dining also serves organic and fair-trade coffees from Intelligentsia, Jazzman’s and Starbucks. We have introduced “fruit-infused” water stations in both resident dining halls to encourage consumption of water as opposed to sugary and processed beverages. We follow guidelines in place based on Sodexo’s commitment to sustainably sourced fish and seafood through the Marine Stewardship Council or the Global Aquaculture Alliance’s Best Aquaculture Practices Program and the Monterey Bay Aquarium Seafood Watch “Best Choice”. Organic and local foods are procured when economically and seasonally feasible and highlighted within resident dining and retail locations as well. Sodexo is committed to serving cage-free shell eggs, and NAU has been purchasing cage-free eggs since the summer of 2012.

Campus Dining has no formal method in place to track the sustainable food and beverage purchases, but have begun to develop baseline measurements of through analysis of invoices and to rely in part on vendor third-party certifications. Students have embarked on the Real Food Challenge calculator to complete a baseline measurement. With the development and approval of the NAU Campus Dining Sustainability Food Policy, a baseline measurement will be established.

Without a formal method for tracking sustainable food and beverage purchases the inventory attached outlines purchases from an Arizona producer, Sterns. The inventory includes local purchases produced within 250 miles though Sterns is not a community based company.